The music that we are ashamed to love, and why we love it. Come with us on a journey to the wild world of Shame FM

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Shame #1 - Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

There are two things that an allegedly heterosexual mid 20's male should not do.

a) Dance under any circumstancesb) Rock out to any song widely considered to be a crucial gay anthem

Point a) I concur with in the strongest possible manner. Unless I'm drunk off my ass and trying to score you will never me anywhere near a dancefloor. Point b) on the other hand is somewhat more troublesome. What exactly defines a "gay anthem", and just because it somehow falls into this

The only particuarly troublesome aspect of this song for me is how Sylvester himself looks like Joan Armatrading but has a voice like he's inhaled several hundred quarts of helium. Watch on and see - and if it'll really get to you to click play there are women in short shorts humping each other too!

Helium Armatrading and the fact that it was used in an advertisement for Fox8 aside there's no doubting the dancefloor shaking quality of this track. Even the fact that he actually appears in drag at 1.37 shouldn't put any other than the most knuckle dragging of homophobe off from at least tapping a foot to the thumping disco beat that is backing up Sylvester's chipmunk-esque vocals. Besides his hat is quite nice and his technique with the hand fan is more than admirable.

If you start to wane in enthusiasm as the video goes on don't worry because they replay the female ass thrusting at 2.20 - hang in for a second serving of that. Suffice to say you probably wouldn't storm down the main street of Frankston (if it has one) with this playing at eleven on your car stereo but unless somebody actually told you it was a 'gay anthem' would you even know? Seems to me that tag is only applied due to the fact that the man responsible for it was out and proud. To me it represents the acceptable face of disco (and Shame FM is all about showing you the acceptable side of things you thought wrong) and you'll be hearing a lot more from this genre as the Shame experience rolls on. We say fire up your Sylvester albums and dust off the Divine 12" (!?) and be out and proud about your love for dodgy disco.

What is SHAME FM?

Adam 1.0 from The Supermercado Projectwas first exposed to music by way of a rogue Don Lane album which his mother claims to have recieved for free. He then moved onto a pristine copy of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' "Going Places" which had also apparently appeared without anyone actually buying it. He then grew up listening to Gold 104 and as a consequence knows all the words to "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes" by Edison Lighthouse. Adam 1.0 has a secret passion for 80's power ballads and is secretly emo at heart.

Elle from Cassettes & Chocolate Milk developed a chilling fascination for shameful music at a very young age. During a six month trip to the UK in 1990, Elle was exposed to an excessive amount of Erasure, Milli Vanilli, The Carpenters and Cat Stevens. As a consequence of this trip, Elle became obsessed with British music. Later, she would develop a famous and largely unrivaled obsession with the band, Queen. To this day, she continues to emphatically contest to their greatness. She frequently exhibits a lack of shame and proprietary in her rants about the lyrical complexity of Roxette demos and the "smudgy" production ethic of Pet Shop Boys b-sides. She lives with cats Rocket, Shui and Ossy the Ocelot.